After 20 years of keeping the Committee in line as General Secretary of W&DAS, Alan has regrettably had to step down to become a full-time carer for his ageing mum. We thank you for your dedication and efforts on behalf our members over such a long time and wish you well for the future.

Terri McNally has agreed to step up in the meantime to look after the shop pending election at the next AGM.

Nostalgia Rules

​Dave Harper has been reading Steve Gardener's new biography of his life in Match Fishing and points out that there are a few references and embarrassing pictures relating to W&DAS from back in the last century. Copies can be obtained from http://www.calmproductions.com/

With 4 matches to go, but potentially 60 points at stake, things are really close at the top of the Championship Tables.The Weights table is even closer, particularly given a couple of big weight venues still to come.

In April 2016, W&DAS members Craig Winchester, Andy Tickner & Paul Oliver made the journey to Jurassic Mountain Fishing Resort in Thailand and enjoyed spectacular sport. Below are just a sample of the fish caught over the four days. (Click on the pictures to enlarge)

The resort also produces a world-wide newsletter each month which is an interesting and enjoyable read. The May 2016 edition can be downloaded here.

Paul Harding, the New 'Face of Maver' chooses Tylers Common Fishery to launch the 2015 Summer Clothing Range....

Many congratulations to W&DAS junior member Sam Tidmarsh for making the final this month with this brilliant 1lb 10oz Perch caught at Woodpeckers on a prawn. It was part of a much bigger catch of skimmers and carp and earns him a Sky Sports Goody Bag.

Great to see one of our own members up there, especially with a catch from one of our adopted waters.

The Blue team faced a daunting three-way tie against Dorking and Cheam Social. Dorking chose often moody home venue of Milton Lake at Old Bury Hill and did a great job in organising the match. It proved to be a really excellent match, close and hard fought, but fished in a great spirit with some good weights posted.

Come the end of the match, the runners all agreed it was too close to call and so it turned out. Remarkably, all three teams finished with 12 points. Cheam and Dorking posted 3 section wins and 3 section lasts each. The WDAS Blues showed consistency with all team 6 members posting 2nd's in section. Aggregate weights too were close, WDAS 143lb 9oz, Cheam 135lb 10oz 8dr & Dorking 128lb 15oz 8dr.

Nobby Whiteing produced our best weight on the day with 35lb 4oz (3rd overall individually) but all of the team did well in posting at least double-figures.

After some head-scratching, all teams agreed that WDAS must have triumphed on the day, but we reckoned without the dogma of the Angling Times. "Rules is Rules" is their stance, electing to stick by the rules that have been unchanged since 1999 where section-win countback be used first, then aggregate weight in the event of a points tie. At first glance, some might say "fair enough" until you realise that these rules were drafted for competitions with many more teams in a round and larger numbers of anglers in each. With the organisers having reduced the team sizes to 6 anglers this year, it is now mathematically impossible to get a tie on points without also having a tie in the number of section wins, so using section-win countback cannot produce a result. It therefore always falls back to aggregate weight.

Despite the fact that if this had been the usual two-way tie against either Dorking or Cheam individually, WDAS would have been the winners of the match, WDAS end up being relegated to last place. More than odd for the most consistent team on the day.

We have lodged a formal appeal in the basis that the change in format this year has resulted in an unforeseen outcome, but the Angling Times has been close to rude in their dismissal of any argument. Frankly, this is a fiasco and if such a result occurs again in the latter stages, then it will fundamentally undermine the competition. We find it hard to believe that Angling Times are failing to recognise this.

Bait-Tech Angling Times Supercup Round 1 - Victory for John Gibbons but not WDAS (Red)

4th April 2015

The Red team chose Woodpeckers as their home venue against Apollo Godalming, but things did not really go to plan. The hoped-for carp failed to show in any numbers, playing into the hands of Apollo who's team plan seemed to target the silver fish. Congratulations to John Gibbons who managed to post top weight on the day of 23lb 12oz, but it registered the Red's only section win.

With weights low, the sections were close, but Apollo ran out clear winners in the end by 7 points to 11. Good luck to Apollo in the next round.

BB in the News again - for the right reasons....

After taking plenty of stick over the Winter of 2014/15 for his performances in the club matches, it seems the Spring has awoken Brian Beacroft from hibernation. Not only did he win the club match at Chequertree in March, he has now also won a mid-week special match held at Sumners Ponds on 10th April with 140lb. Remarkably, this included a trio of carp for 50lb including a personal best of 21lb 4oz!

Could Brian be the man to watch for the coming season??

Right is a picture (courtesy of Dave Harper) of Brian cuddling his new PB. Well done Brian!

The bad news is that the Blue team have draw a three-way tie vs Dorking and vs Cheam Social. Dorking have the home draw and get to choose the venue.

The Red team have been drawn against Apollo Godalming but have the home advantage and so need to select a venue.

Practice sessions will be arranged, following which the final teams will be selected from each squad for each round.

On a dour River Medaway, W&DAS secure a convincing win. See match reports

Hat Trick of Eden Challenge wins for W&DAS

For the third year in succession, W&DAS win the 2014 Eden Challenge, this year by a considerable margin. A great achievment and not just for the team.

After competing in the event for 28 years, Jason Courtney won the individual honours for the first time with 11lb 14oz from Broad A at Chiddingstone. Well done Big Man!

In addition, Barry Stagg also did really well to claim 2nd place overall with 9lb 2oz from Mill Farm. Worthy of a mention in dispatches were our two other section winners, Mickey Biles and Hugh Blake although it is worth noting that the whole team did really well with the lowest result still being a commendable 4th in section.

A great team effort - well done everyone.

​Detailed results below.

​

Ladies, Dads and LadsBarnes Court Fishery - 20th September 2014

On a very pleasant late summer day, three Ladies and four Dads and Lads teams turned out up for their annual competitions. Although a little busy with Day-Ticket anglers, we managed to find enough pegs on what is an ideal venue for this sortof event and despite quite shallow water, there were plenty of fish caught and all thoroughly enjoyed their 3 hour sessionThanks to David Harper for helping with pegging and David Adby for the pictures.

Dads 'n Lads The delight is evident on the face of young Finley Hutchins who, with a little help from Dad Jerry managed to win the pairs competition with a bag of assorted carp and a combined weight of 24lb 4oz.

Second place was brother Callum Hutchins who was paired with his un-named Uncle and a team weight of 18lb 9oz. However, Uncle was very much the weak link here with Callum carrying the pairing as the picture of his contribution clearly shows. Third was Neil & Sam Tidmarsh on 4lb 12oz and bringing up the rear with 2lb 6oz was Ryan and Alphonsus Duffy.

​

Ladies

​Pegged side by side on the bottom lake, Anita Evans and Terri McNally (pictured) traded the lead throughout the match as each caught the odd larger carp amongst the steady procession of smaller hand-sized F1's. A couple of decent carp in the last 15 ​minutes including one on the whistle was probably enough to make the difference for Anita who ran out the winner with 15lb 4oz, all caught on the pole baited with corn or maggot. Sticking to her waggler and a variety of baits, Terri did well to finish with 11lb 10oz and despite losing a couple of good fish in the extensive lily pads.

On her match angling debut, Mary Jamieson went for quantity over quality with dozens of mini-carp in the 2" to 3" range and a very creditable 5lb 8oz. It would have been a lot more had her gillie (David Adby) not managed to drop the only quality carp that Mary landed, back into the water whilst unhooking it!

​Len Tutt Junior CupBarnes Court Fishery - 16th August 2014

The annual junior-only match managed only 4 entrants, but nevertheless, all caught fish and had a great day.

​Results as follows:Callum Hutchins 18lb 0ozOlivia Blake 6lb 6ozFinlay Hutchins 5lb 4ozSam Tidmarsh 3lb 6oz A resounding victory for Callum so well done! Mind you Callum gives many of the seniors a run for their money when he turns up for the regular matches.

Thanks to Dave Adby for making time to organise the event and special thanks to former junior member Dan Diment for his kind donation of prizes. We wish him every success with his new online Pole Rigs venture. www.polerigs.co.uk

​W&DAS Road Trip

Huge thanks go to Dave Harper for organising an outstanding trip to fish the incredible Rolf's Lake in Wheatley, Oxon.

For Day 1 (14th May 2014) , the ten W&DAS tourists took on seven of the locals in one of their regular Wednesday open matches and were resoundly stuffed. The locals give a really warm welcome to us visitors and freely offer as much advice as they can knowing that the almost unique nature of the venue still gives them a big advantage. Unsurprisingly, they took all the pools money but also the top six places overall with weights of 190, 165, 161, 146, 93 & 69lb respectively. The best W&DAS effort was from Paul Oliver with 66lb although this did include a new personal best carp of 21lb, caught on corn from the margins.

Following a lock-in till nearly 2am at a local pub, some of the group were a little delicate for Day 2. Fortunately, Rolf's fishes best in the afternoons so the W&DAS-only match was set for 1pm till 6pm. The sheer size and power of the fish in Rolf's meant that we still came second best in many encounters with the big carp but taking what had been learnt from day 1, it turned out to be a great match with most improving substantially on their day 1 efforts.

Well done to Mark Merrett who ran out the winner with 120-11-0 by targetting a number of the cruising fish with a slow-sinking (not floating!!) lump of paste on the pole and finishing off with a final few from the margins. Two pegs along, Paul Oliver managed 108-14-0 catching a couple on feeder before also concentrating on the margins. John Palmer managed to draw the same peg but rectified his day 1 mistakes to come a close third with 105-12-0, just pipping Terry Merrett who had 105-7-0.

The rest of the results: Dave King with 68-2-0 which included the best carp (pictured) of 16lb on the day and enough to win yet again another side bet with Dave Harper on 63-6-0, Bob Stone on 57-14-0 (which included 27-8-0 of silvers to take the silver bag prize), Brian Beecroft 46-11-0, Fluff Balding 45-15-0 and Mickey Biles 40-5-0. Rolf's is not just a carp venue, as some real quality bream, roach and even chub featured amongst the bags.

Afterwards, lost battles and near misses were again recounted at length during another late night lock-in at the pub.

​The real stalwarts then went on to fish a sctatch match on Red Kite lake at Oakfield fishery on Friday where again ​Mark Merrett topped the dwindling field of 7.

Copyright 2013. Warlingham and District Anglers' Society. All rights reserved.